Variations on xiao long bao (Soup Dumplings) / Vegetarian xiao long bao with carrot-ginger soup and samosa filling

It's been a while since my last post, I've been a bit busier and also took a while to think of a new project.  I decided to try making xiao long bao (XLB), or Chinese soup dumplings.  These tasty dumplings are usually filled with a ground pork/scallion filling as well as a rich broth.  What's interesting about the process of making XLB is that it uses gelatin to set the broth into a solid state, which can be easily handled and used to fill the dumpling.  This same technique has been used in a range of other recipes and in restaurants to make liquid-filled ravioli (like the Black Truffle Explosion at Alinea).  Given how versatile/adaptable the process for making XLB is, I was surprised that there haven't been many varieties of XLB produced.  To demonstrate the flexibility of this procedure, I decided to make a vegetarian xiao long bao with a samosa filling (curry potato and pea) with a complementary carrot-ginger soup.

Left: Carrots and onions for boiling in a pot. Center: Softened carrots pureed with immersion blender, cream and ginger powder added. Right: Carrot ginger soup gel after Vegan Jel added to 2X diluted soup, 

In order to create a soup gel, I used the "Vegan Jel" product by Natural Desserts, which is created from vegetable gum.  I chose this as opposed to other vegetarian gelling agents (which you can read about here) because it's substitution for gelatin in recipes was fairly straightforward (1.5 tsp substitutes for 1 tsp gelatin), and because it was claimed to have a similar melting point to gelatin.  In making the soup gel, I found that I had to first cook the soup down to my desired consistency, then dilute it with one equal part of water.  Without this step, the soup dries up during the dumpling steaming step, since a fair amount of moisture is lost.

Left: Mashed boiled potato. Center: Mashed potato with garam masala, coriander powder and cardamom powder. Right: Curried potato filling fried in a pan with onion and mixed with peas

Several recipes for making samosa filling involved cooking down onions with garam masala, then mixing in mashed/boiled potato.  I found that you get much more control over the flavor by splitting your mashed/boiled potato into two batches - to one which you add garam masala, corriander powder, cardamom powder and salt to to taste, the other unseasoned batch you reserve for correcting mistakes (can mix in if any one flavor seems too strong and then adjust seasoning again).  For more texture, it was better to leave some larger not-fully-cooked chunks of potato.

Left: Filling a handmade dumpling skin with gelled soup and samosa filling. Right: pleated and filled xiao long bao 

With a 2X diluted and gelled soup, I found that the ideal ratio of soup:filling was close to 2:1.  At around 1:1 or less, there wouldn't really be a noticeable amount of soup in the dumpling.

Left: Vegetarian samosa filling and carrot-ginger soup xiao long bao steamed for 10 minutes. Right: Opened XLB

I may add more analysis later on gelling agents and an actual recipe entry.  I would say that the finished product was tasty, although could use some improvement.  A meat-filled dumpling typically has more bite/texture, whereas between the samosa filling, dumpling skin, and soup, there isn't much variety in texture.  A future project may be a soup-filled samosa, which would have the needed deep-fried crunch.  Another possibility would be to have a mushroom-based filling for more bite, and a gelled mushroom or vegetable broth.